Without Lifting A Finger

“Abravanel was never impressed by nationalism. At all. Anywhere. He was totally unimpressed by a world divided into hundreds of nation-states, like rows and rows of separate cages in a zoo. He didn’t know Yiddish—he spoke Hebrew and Arabic, he spoke Ladino, English, French, Turkish, and Greek—but to all the states in the world he applied a Yiddish expression: goyim naches. Gentiles’ delight. Statehood seemed to him a childish and outdated concept.”

The neighbors called him an Arab-lover. They called him Haj Amin, the Grand Mufti. And some people called him a traitor, because he justified, to some extent, the Arab opposition to Zionism and because he fraternized with Arabs. And yet he always insisted on calling himself a Zionist and even claimed he belonged to the small handful of true Zionists who were not intoxicated with nationalism. He described himself as the last disciple of that Zionist visionary Ahad Ha’am. He had known Arabic since his childhood, and he loved to sit surrounded by Arabs in the coffeehouses of the Old City and talk for hours on end. He had close friends among the Muslim and the Christian Arabs. He pointed to a different way. He had a different idea altogether. I argued with him. I stuck to my view that this war was sacred, a war of which it is written, ‘Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber,’ et cetera. My child, Micha, my only son, Micha, might perhaps not have gone to this war had it not been for his...

  A bit of a tease: you'll have to go to the Poetry Foundation to read the whole poem (see link below). PF has posted two of my poems now ("Totem" and "Completely Possible," both previously appearing in Quadrant Magazine). https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/1578897/completely-possible #rlswihart #poetry #completelypossible #poetryfoundation #previouslypublishedinquadrant

Judaism and Christianity, and Islam too, all drip honeyed words of love and mercy so long as they do not have access to handcuffs, grills, dominion, torture chambers, and gallows. All these faiths, including those that have appeared in recent generations and continue to mesmerize adherents to this day, all arose to save us and all just as soon started to shed our blood. Personally I do not believe in world reform. No. I do not believe in any kind of world reform. Not because I consider that the world is perfect as it is—certainly not, the world is crooked and grim and full of suffering—but whoever comes along to reform it soon sinks in rivers of blood.

“There’s no such thing as women’s mysterious preferences. Where did you hear such nonsense? I have no idea why couples separate, because I have no idea how they get together in the first place. Or why. In other words, it’s no use asking me about women’s preferences. Or men’s, for that matter. I have no womanly insights to offer you. Maybe Wald—maybe you should talk to him about this. He’s an expert on everything, after all.”

‘Now, Sir,’ quoth he, ‘have friars such a grace, That none of them shall come into this place?’ ‘Yes’ quoth the angel; ‘many a millioun:’ And unto Satanas he led him down. ‘And now hath Satanas,’ said he, ‘a tail Broader than of a carrack is the sail. Hold up thy tail, thou Satanas,’ quoth he, ‘Shew forth thine erse, and let the friar see Where is the nest of friars in this place.’

Just the part of "At the Seashore" that delighted me (first strophe): The pain-people think that God is the god of joy, the joy-people think that God is the god of pain. The coast-people think that love is in the mountains, and the mountain-people think that love is at the seashore so they go down to the sea.

He was a shepherd, and no mercenary. And though he holy were, and virtuous, He was to sinful men not dispitous1 1severe Nor of his speeche dangerous nor dign1 1disdainful But in his teaching discreet and benign. To drawen folk to heaven, with fairness, By good ensample, was his business: 1But it were1 any person obstinate, 1but if it were1 What so he were of high or low estate, Him would he snibbe1 sharply for the nones2. 1reprove 2nonce,occasion A better priest I trow that nowhere none is. He waited after no pomp nor reverence, Nor maked him a 1spiced conscience1, 1artificial conscience1 But Christe’s lore, and his apostles’ twelve, He taught, and first he follow’d it himselve.